Shimmer, Glimmer, & Gleam - A Quest of Loss & Gain

Silence. You go to raise your eyebrows assertively when one of the divinity students coughs and goes, "That's not how you do it, ma'am."

"...Did you just 'ma'am' me when we're the same age?" you ask. "Wait, no, leave it, what do you mean that's not how you 'do it'? She's a god, she hears and sees us. Our Mother is attentive, it's kinda her thing."

You and just about everyone else take a moment to sign the Spear down your torsos in reverence, but then the student - gods, they all blend together, this's, this isssssss Gary, right, the dude where you were like 'oh baby no one is gonna respect a priest named fucking Gary' in your head - he continues. "Of course, ma - uh, Miss Jill, but if you're formally asking her to settle this dispute there's a rite for that, ensured by ancient promises from before the Empire was...well, the Empire!"

Holbrook clears her throat. "I'm certain we don't need to -"

"Fund it," you interrupt. "I am formally requesting the blessed eyes of Our Mother, defender and protector of the living and the damned, glory to her name."

You've gone and done it now, but, honestly. You're feeling upset about this whole thing and you're not sure why, so maybe, just a little, this is the time to do things how Orchid might do them: double down and never stop doubling.

* * * *

So, bad news and weird news and they're the same news. Your ideas about 'ancient rites', being mostly influenced by film, involve a lot of blood sacrifice. The bad news is you're not actually wrong here, but the weird news is that it's like, one drop each from the parents, one drop from you, and a single crow whose heart is placed at the center of the sacred sigil. Necessity has moved this activity outdoors, and word of mouth has brought the old-timers, the spiders, Orchid (DAMN IT), lookie-loos and also the kids, but you can't let 'em see you sweat so you sit there with your arms folded, a bandage on your finger, while the divinity students consult their notes from class and their professors and, in one case, an elaborate shorthand cheatsheet a lass had hidden in the label of a water bottle she's had since the world ended.

"Is there a reason this doesn't get used in courts of law?" you murmur to Andrea next to you.

"Used to be, in ancient times," Andrea answers serenely. "Mara told us all to knock it off; the last use of this rite in a legal sense was Her giving Her stamp of approval to the first court system of the Empire. Gods are busy people."

And that's all you have time for, because you're getting the nod from the ritualists. You step forward and present a glass lance; Mrs. Holbrook crosses her own against yours, just above the bloody heart of the crow. All around the sacred sigil of Mara, drawn in ashes and dabbed with the drops of blood, the ritualists drop into a trance state, dreaming while awake...

You don't speak the language the rite is in, but the old professor sure does, belting out musical syllables at the top of his lungs. For an old guy he's got some fucking pipes, and as his prayer continues you see the ground of the sigil burst, concrete and asphalt transmuting to soil that then sprouts wheat. Before your very eyes it ripens until it is ready for harvest, waving gold in the morning sun...

As agreed, Mrs. Holbrook speaks first; she tells of her daughter's behavior, and that of the children, the 'dangerous ideas' that Orchid has put in their heads. You will give her this: she's not out here talking about faggots and degenerates, at least, instead making a lot of the same arguments you yourself had to make when you wanted to Switch - men and women are different, they have different things to do in society, and must understand and embrace their roles. But as she cites chapter and verse, your heart wrings. Something here feels wrong...why's it feel so fuckin' wrong?

Uh. That's not how this goes. But you close your mouth instead of taking your turn to talk. What's...going on...

"Lady Mara," you begin, "we're sorry to have bothered you, it's just...we're lost, a little. Is all. So many of us have changed and we're trying to figure out how to be people in your new world."

"We are not lost," Holbrook disagrees. "Holy writ does not change -"

"Mother -" Holbrook begins, very much not dropping it, and before you can tell her to shut the fuck up for her own safety, it happens. A crow-like talon, whose scales ripple and turn to glass even as it enters the world from the center of the sigil, snatches Holbrook from her place and drags her into nothing, where she vanishes, screaming. The ritualists bleed gently from their noses as the increasingly panicked professor continues his prayer, and for a long, horrible moment you're pretty sure you just saw the Holy Mother kill someone for being annoying.

Then a man is spat back out, tall and strapping and young, dressed in simple grey robes, and his eyes and hair are the same color as Holbrook's.

The ritualists keel over unconscious and are quickly caught by the people standing by them just in case of exactly this; the presence of the divine vanishes, and everyone starts scrambling.

Choose one
[ ] Try to offer an olive branch to Mrs. Holbrook
[ ] Go to Orchid
[ ] Walk off with your dignity and freak out in private